You Got Served: Draft groupthink

Ted BartlettMay 1, 2012 1:30 PM

Did you hear the one about the NFL team which “reached” for a player to fill a need? That’s a no-no, picking for need. You should be drafting the best player available (hereafter BPA), regardless of need, goes the story. I reject that thought as being over-generalized, because if you have a bad team, you should be picking to fill roles that will allow you to be competitive.

If you’re the Giants, then fine - take the BPA - if there’s no massive need to fill. Some would say that Jerry Reese did that over the weekend (including Reese), but I would tell you that RB David Wilson and WR Rueben Randle filled needs, and specifically replaced Brandon Jacobs and Mario Manningham. The Draftnik groupthink didn’t have the Giants universally taking any position, so that allows Reese to say he went BPA, regardless of the reality.

Then there’s the Ravens taking Courtney Upshaw. They got the BPA and he’s a pass rusher! Huzzah for Ozzie Newsome! Except that Upshaw isn’t a dynamic pass rusher, and that he does fill a clear need, with the departure of Jarret Johnson, as an edge-setter in the running game on the strongside. If Ozzie had a slightly worse track record, you’d be reading about how as an Alabama alum, he shows too much love to Crimson Tide guys like Upshaw. (Johnson also played at Alabama, actually.)

Understand this – every team wants to say they took the BPA on every pick. The media environment is such that instant analysis MUST happen after a Draft, despite the fact that it’s completely worthless. Look at a team like Pittsburgh, which took G David DeCastro and T Mike Adams in the first two rounds. The media says that both picks represented good “value” because each player was mocked by various media members to go higher in the Draft. They say that Pittsburgh went the BPA route, only because no consensus had formed that the Steelers would go for offensive linemen.

I say that Pittsburgh was clearly targeting offensive linemen, as part of their owner’s stated goal of getting better in the running game. Remember, the Steelers fired Bruce Arians because he likes to throw too much, and brought in Handshake Haley (who likes to throw just about as much) to replace him. The point is that a lot of the media stuff is nonsense, and teams work pretty hard to manage what is said about what they did.

Remember how Defensive Tackle wasn’t that big a need for the Broncos? Remember how they wanted to take impact players who would contribute this year? Remember how it was all about BPA all the time? These are things which teams have to say to the media, and which they hope will pave the way to a positive narrative coming out the other end.

In the case of the Broncos, those efforts largely failed. The main reason why is because the Denver Post epically whiffed on covering the 2012 Draft. When you point out that Derek Wolfe wasn’t in Jeff Legwold’s Top 100 players, and that the Broncos took him 36th overall, that doesn’t necessarily point to a bad move by the Broncos; much more likely, it points to Legwold’s half-assedness, and noted lack of any real football acumen.

Legwold may have successfully conned his bosses at the Post into thinking that he’s watching a lot of film, but if he had been, he’d know Wolfe, and he’d know that the dude has really impressive film, and that it’s better and more consistent than more well-known guys like Jerel Worthy and Devon Still. I think the guy probably just reads the other groupthink out there and calls his equally unknowledgeable local media buddies around the country, and just builds his lists off of that.

It’s been a while since I’ve really beaten up on the DP crew, and I mainly leave that to Doug, but I’m riding pretty high after calling Wolfe the third-best DT prospect and second-best pass rusher at the position last Monday. My comments were based on watching football video, as always. This website was all over it, with Doc and I having both talked about Wolfe, and TJ and Doug both being very aware of him as a player, and for all his Passion, Legwold came off looking like a clown who was butthurt that he was way off the mark.

Let’s talk about the groupthink phenomenon in the media, because it’s very important to the overall narrative out there. As we look around the Draft commentary landscape, we see five distinct types of media people:

Type 1 – Draft-focused hard workers with solid knowledge of football and players

Type 5 – Local reporters and columnists who tend to be the worst of all worlds

Examples: Woody Paige, Jeff Legwold, Mike Klis

Throughout this universe of commentary, a groupthink tends to coalesce around which virtually everybody is in agreement about 95% of the facts on the ground. In this groupthink, the real knowledge is gained and disseminated by the Type 1s, and it’s consumed by the Type2s, 3s, and somewhat, the 4s and 5s.

The Type 2s keep their mock drafts updated and re-issue them 70 times between January and April, and they tend to follow the work of the Type 1s pretty closely, in aid of keeping up with conventional wisdom of which player is rated more highly than another. The Type 3s don’t do as many mocks, but they show up with one the week of the Draft.

The Type 4s will have a “nugget” here and there in their weekly columns throughout the process, and especially as they get close to the actual Draft, they start reporting what teams tell them. The Type 5s work the same way on the local level.

The point is that for all of these words written in print and on the internet, and spoken on TV and the radio, there’s very little deviation between what’s said. The differences will be over whether Jerel Worthy is a better scheme fit for Team X than Devon Still is, and most of the people writing would have no real clue about that.

If the universe of draft commentary were efficient, and reflected what was actually going on in the thought processes of teams, writers would be getting more than six or seven picks right in a mock draft. Look at Peter King whining about how he agonized over a pick for hours. The commentators agree on 95% of the facts, but do teams? The answer is pretty clearly no.

The reason for that is because teams are actually watching film and working out the players, and because they have specific schemes, and are seeking to fill specific roles within those schemes. When I say “specific schemes,” I’m talking about the fact that there are significant differences between one West Coast offense and another, and between one 4-3 and another.

At this writing, we don’t know what the Broncos defense is going to look like in 2012, because there’s a new defensive coordinator in Jack Del Rio, and even if the team were willing to talk about scheme specifics, nobody at the Denver Post has the chops to really understand the conversation, or to report on it in an enlightening way.

I tend to think that TJ is on it, with his speculation about the nature of the 4-3 we’ll see. But the fact remains that this is the only Broncos website that has any in-house writers with real scheme knowledge, and who could therefore even begin to hazard a realistic guess. That’s part of how I can recognize Derek Wolfe as being a good fit for what we think the team will do. (The other part is that I watch football video and know how to recognize a good football player.)

The team knows what they specifically want to do, and the media doesn’t. That leads teams to have wild divergences among themselves in how they value certain players, and to the media not doing so. For this reason, it’s silly when a media member criticizes a team for “reaching” for a player. It’s also silly when they talk about how a team got good “value” by taking a player later than where the consensus mock draft had him.

Did you ever collect baseball cards? We did as kids in my family, and every month, we’d get the Beckett value guide. We’d go to card shows, buy and sell, and trade with others in the neighborhood. My brother Chris was much more into it than me, but we all dabbled some. I learned a lot about the concept of value at 12 years old from baseball cards.

How much is Cal Ripken’s rookie card worth? In 1990, Beckett may have said it was worth $15.00 in mint condition. If I took it to a store, though, with the intention of selling it, what could I get for it? Beckett’s number meant that $15.00 was a price that I was supposed to find acceptable if I were shopping at Comic Den, but nobody was going to give ME that much money for that card. The lesson was that an asset is only worth what you can get for it.

That comes into play when you start criticizing “reaches” and also how much compensation a team got for trading up or down. If you want to trade down, and the player you really want is going to be there at the later pick, anything you get in the deal leaves you better off than where you were before you made it. The Browns traded a 4th-, 5th-, and 7th-round pick to move up from #4 to #3 on Thursday, and to ensure that they got Trent Richardson.

If you consult the outdated/stupid value chart, the Vikings got 101.5 points worth of value for trading down 400 points worth of value.

Why do that deal? Because something is better than nothing, if you’re ultimately going to get the player you want, and because that was the best offer they had. The market set the value of the asset, not some chart, and not some media groupthink. The only reason the Vikings haven’t been slammed for not getting enough “value” is because they only went down one spot and indisputably got the player they wanted from the start. If they’d gone down two spots to #5, and Tampa had taken Richardson, and the Browns took Morris Claiborne, the Vikings still would have gotten Matt Kalil. It would have been easily speculated, though, that the Vikings actually wanted Claiborne, and had to settle for Kalil instead.

Here are three key points I want you to think about, as I wrap this up:

1. Teams evaluate the capabilities of players very differently, based both upon what they see on film, and upon what they need for the roles they’re trying to fill within their specific schemes.

You want to know who was a major reach in 2011? Aldon Smith of the 49ers, that’s who. Don’t believe me? Look here. That’s some criticism, and also some damning with faint praise, if you ask me. According to the groupthink, Smith was supposed to go between 12th and 20th, and he ended up going 7th. For the most part, those are the Type 1s who know a bit of football, too. Imagine how many of the other types criticized the 49ers for “reaching.”

Of course, as it turned out, the 49ers had a specific role to fill, and they filled it. Smith played on passing downs and recorded 14.5 sacks as a rookie on a surprising team. This is a reminder to ignore the fools who cry about reaches.

2. Scheme fit is tremendously important, and the vast majority of the universe of Draft commentary has no clue about the scheme considerations of each of the various teams.

I’ve been seeing Seattle get killed for taking Bruce Irvin and Russell Wilson, but I applaud them. They clearly know what they want, and they have the sack to go outside the media groupthink. I’m here to tell you, Pete Carroll knows what a pass rusher looks like, and if he says that Irvin is the best one in this class, you’d do well to take heed of that.

The media guys say, well, Irvin won’t play on every down, and he can’t hold up in the run game. That might be true, but if Carroll is focused on hitting the QB in passing situations, he might not care about Irvin playing on early downs. His strongside DE in base defense plays like a traditional 3-4 DE and two-gaps, while the backside one-gaps. If Irvin’s role is to replace Red Bryant on 3rd down, that’s a specific role in a unique defense.

Trust me, Pete knows what he wants on his defense, and he has a specific role in mind for Irvin. How the kid would fit in any of the other 31 defensive schemes is completely irrelevant, because the Seahawks valued him as the 15th-best player in the Draft, in the context of their own player acquisition requirements.

3. When a media person tells you that a team could have gotten the same player later, don’t believe them, because it only takes one other team to like your guy as much as you do.

I don’t care that nobody in the media had Ronnie Hillman in their top 100. The Broncos valued him highly enough to take him 67th, and if you watch his tape, you’ll see why. They traded up 20 spots to get their guy, and have been criticized for doing so. Why not stay at #87, because Hillman probably gets there? If he doesn’t, you just take Lamar Miller.

There are two bad assumptions at play there. The first is that all 32 teams value all players equally, and that the media consensus accurately reflects that relative valuation. The second is that Hillman and Miller (or whoever) are interchangeable, vis-à-vis the specific role that the Broncos want them to fill. Both of these assumptions are flat-out wrong.

I don’t care if most teams had Worthy or Still rated more highly than Wolfe. Based on the tape of the three players, I highly doubt that that’s true, but we’ll never know one way or another. To the Broncos, for their specific needs, Wolfe was the best guy they could take, and they felt like #36 was an appropriate place to take him. Personally, I think the Panthers were a pretty big threat to take him at #40 if he were still on the board. (They took OG Amini Silatolu in actuality, but the groupthink had DT as their biggest need entering Draft Day.)

The point is that we don’t know, and we shouldn’t take the groupthink as being indicative of reality, because 32 teams have 32 evaluations, and 32 sets of scheme-specific needs, and 32 sets of values, vis-à-vis player traits they’re looking for.

I’m not going to praise or rip the Broncos’ draft activities with any kind of conviction, because there’s no point in doing so. I loved the Wolfe pick, and I pretty much hated the Brock Osweiler pick, as I’m sure many of you gathered on Friday. I’m not so invested in being right that I’m rooting for Osweiler to fail, though. I want all Broncos to be successful, and I want the team’s decision makers to have been right in what they did. The thing is, only time will tell if they were.

1. I’m not in the arguing business, I’m in the saying what I think business.
2. I get my information from my eyes.

he was indeed the BPA as was Al Wilson.. players that we did not need at all at the time. Probably the only two great choices mikey ever made.

Posted by Lonestar47 on 2012-05-02 20:40:01

Great post as always..

that said I have always believed that if you know what you want you go for it EVEN if it is 2 rounds earlier than someone in the media or for that matter on any of the football forums think it should have been..None of them KNOW what is in those scouting reports FROM your scouts who hopefully know what your looking for in a player..Also none of them have a clue on what responses you got during one on one interviews with them.

I really liked your break down of the types of pundits.. but you left one off IMO..

the WAG* on football forums who know more than our GM, VP, and all the Coaches we have hired..

* Wild Ass Guessers..

Posted by Lonestar47 on 2012-05-02 20:38:40

CHFF is great in some ways but limited in other ways. Some things do not pass the eye test that a fan or a coaching staff who watched every snap of the season could see but eludes the statistics.

Obviously because of the limitations of our QB's passing game last year our current crop of WR's were handicapped statistically because of inaccuracy in the throws, quirkiness in the release and our shifting to a run option offense that did not involve a lot of passing.

The same WRs with Peyton Manning or a more accurate pocket passer , DT and Decker have the potential to do more statistically than heroic Tim Tebow could manage.

We could see that TT had issues with progression or throwing accurate passes in traffic and his style of play was not going to help WR statistics. Our eyeball observations are not captured by the numbers.

Posted by kosty Kosty on 2012-05-02 10:04:47

Great article Ted. Hope this will put things into perspective for those guys who are so down on the draft.

Posted by Steve Williams on 2012-05-02 03:18:33

Finally...balanced and reasoned comments! Nicely done!

Posted by denverkewl on 2012-05-02 00:29:40

Brent crude is simply a classification of crude oil (vs WTI or others), not a pricing determinant of the product.

Posted by Ralph_W on 2012-05-01 22:46:30

Great as always mate. Gave me a new perspective for sure. Have to admit, at first I though the Wolfe pick was dumb, but that shows you the folly in reacting with the necessary research.I, too, dont understand the Osweiler pick what so ever, but I hope he kills it in the future.Much appreciated my friend.

Posted by boydy2669 on 2012-05-01 22:30:50

But Lindsey Jones said that Jeff Legwold is a draft guru. Or maybe she said drama guru.

Posted by A R on 2012-05-01 21:59:02

" When you point out that Derek Wolfe wasn’t in Jeff Legwold’s Top 100 players, and that the Broncos took him 36th overall, that doesn’t necessarily point to a bad move by the Broncos; much more likely, it points to Legwold’s half-assedness, and noted lack of any real football acumen."

That is epic!

Thank you Ted for a fantastic article. It is so nice to have a place to go and read intellectual discussion of our favorite team, Thanks to Doc, Doug and TJ as well you guys are all excellent. The Denver Post would do well to get you guys writing for them instead. I don't mean to sound lame, but i, and I believe most that vistit IAOFM do greatly appreciate the work you all do.

Posted by jman75 on 2012-05-01 20:40:30

nice find A R.

Posted by Orange_and_Blue on 2012-05-01 19:45:17

Very informative, Ted. I will admit I was one of those that was disheartened by the draft. I am feeling more positive about after reading your assessment and discussion of player/system fit and specific value to system. Thanks.

Posted by Joseph on 2012-05-01 19:29:17

Footballoutsiders or ProFootballFocus did one grading each team's drafts from 2006-2010

Posted by Joseph on 2012-05-01 19:24:41

Great article - thanks for telling it like it is.

I remember when the Broncos drafted Trevor Pryce, and were widely slated for it. He turned out pretty well! Hope these new guys do too.

Posted by RobSwenson on 2012-05-01 18:46:17

Looks like the blogspot link was what the wordpress article used in creating their graph. If so, it only goes to 2009 and does not include 2010 as I incorrectly recalled.

Please do. We've been thinking that over the last couple years, the chart has been shot to hell by the new CBA, and the financial risk math that goes with it. I'd be interested to see this article, at least as a basis of comparison.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2012-05-01 17:54:27

Thanks Andrew. Good seeing you on here.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2012-05-01 17:52:39

How is a market guide to commodity trading stupid? Is Brent crude oil stupid? Shouldn't I check Kelly Blue Book before buying or selling a car, or is KBB stupid? The problem isn't with the draft value chart (although the rookie pay scale may make the pre-2011 version outdated), it's that the media treats the chart not as a guide but as Gospel. Consult the market guide, then start haggling.

A few months ago I was looking to see if the draft value chart is followed. I found an article examining all trades (trades involving players and future picks excluded) from 1992-2010. Value of the picks by the team trading down on the x axis, value of the picks by the team trading up on the Y. If all trades followed the chart exactly, each data point would be on a line where x=y, or a slope of 1. Actual slope was close to, but not exactly 1, something like .98 or .96. Trades valued 1000 or less tend to be 'fair', trades from 1000 to 1500 are generally 'fair' and over 1500 shows a lot of deviation. If I can find the article again I will link it.

Posted by A R on 2012-05-01 17:43:09

Kiper looks like a warlock.

Posted by Orange_and_Blue on 2012-05-01 17:40:57

Ted - Awesome article as always. Also, I'm impressed with the number of articles that you have authored that include the word "butthurt". It may not be a real word, but it gets the point across quite well.

Posted by DavidInLA on 2012-05-01 17:26:02

This morning my car radio was tuned in to the local sports station -- I'd been listening to the Padres game the other night and forgot to change it -- and the morning radio guys were interviewing Jason Cole about his draft retrospective/grades. Aside from the incestuous futility of the media interviewing other media, it was a complete waste as it was abundantly clear that Cole was putting no effort into the discussion. During the lead-up to the interview, the local guy read what Cole had written about the Chargers and the rest of the AFC West. Cole came on the air and initially sounded as disoriented as if he'd gone out drinking the night before and woken up in back alley in Newark wearing only a traffic cone. Once he figured out he was talking to a San Diego radio station, he read the exact same paragraph about the Chargers draft that the radio guy had read a minute before, then segued onto Shanahan and the Redskins QBs. The local guys were eagerly lapping up this regurgitation, so I decided that the intellectual stimulation I needed for my morning commute should be found elsewhere so I fired up the CD player with Rocket to Russia...

Posted by DCJ1 on 2012-05-01 17:07:43

Loved the Comic Den reference. Good work as always, Ted.

Posted by azercie on 2012-05-01 16:56:11

Because no one would remember by then, and wouldn't care.

Posted by A R on 2012-05-01 16:50:44

Glad you wrote this Ted, the hysteria on the comment threads about the Broncos draft is getting out of hand. We may indeed look back at this draft and think that the Broncos scouting staff and management team made mistakes in judging talent and scheme fit, but how about we let these 21 and 22 year old kids play some football for a few years before rushing to judgement?

So many of the comments are based on "value" that is created from the groupthink lists. You can't assume because the groupthink lists have Wolfe or Hillman further down that they could trade down and still get him.

i'd say the most obvious mistake from last year is how many people thought Cam wouldn't make a successful transition to the NFL. Might be best to let them actually play some regular season games before saying it was a bad draft. p.s. Out of the undrafted kids I am excited for Duke!

Posted by Charles Netto on 2012-05-01 16:40:14

I respect CHFF for their disciplined, empirical approach, but the thing with WR being a position of need for the broncos is a great example of why that approach is limited. If you look at the stats, denver had no true #1 WR last year, and a ton of dropped passses. If you watched the games, you saw two developing young WR's that show tons of potential and no reason to think that they can't fulfill that potential. I think we can agree which side we're on here regarding Decker and DT.

Posted by Hercules_Rockefeller on 2012-05-01 16:33:57

I like the Mile High Report but sometime's I feel like it got to be too big. There's sometimes a lot of irrationality to weed through.

Posted by RockyMtnThunder on 2012-05-01 16:32:12

I read the article, it seems to depend on how you assess the WR talent specifically - obviously EFX thought that drafting a rookie WR would not be an upgrade over the talent they have. Byren disagrees but it doesn't mean he is right.

I also think the article does one thing really badly - it doesn't allow for young players to get better. It projects the Wide Receivers to be the exact same as the year before, yet both Thomas and Decker are young. Sometimes it's important as an organization to allow for growth from within. Finally I really didn't understand why he even mentions drafting a TE. Peyton was a monster with Tamme when Clark went down. I think Tamme and Dresen are huge upgrades for TE for the Broncos and drafting a TE would be hugely inefficient in making the team better.

Posted by Charles Netto on 2012-05-01 16:28:50

Good point. funny thing about height and weight; Chris Harris is "undersized" at 5' 10" and 190, but he's only 2 lbs and 2" shorter than Champ Bailey at 6' and 192. And that's 2 lbs and 2 inches MORE than Darrent Williams (may he rest in peace).

Posted by Hercules_Rockefeller on 2012-05-01 16:23:31

I understand that it is fun to learn about prospects and do one's own mock draft. What I don't understand is when fans are calling out EFX (on MHR someone actually said EFX got raped) because the actual draft didn't go like the fan thinks it should have.

Posted by Alaskan on 2012-05-01 16:17:58

April 1st, 2010, the morning show for KIBZ The Blaze in Lincoln, NE announced that the station was changing it's format to "all Nickelback, all the time' and every song played on the morning show was of course Nickelback. The show ran until 10am and by 9:15 they had to stop and admit that it was an April Fools prank because of so many angry phone calls and emails. Or now that I think about it, maybe listeners really did know it was a prank but were unwilling to suffer another hour of Nickelback even for an awesome April Fools joke.

Posted by A R on 2012-05-01 16:16:33

Why do we not have a draft grading system that we do at say, ten years after the draft?

Posted by Joe Manzanares on 2012-05-01 16:13:26

That's sort of correct. What I'm saying with Legwold is that he wasn't aware of a good player, despite his claims of being so passionate about the draft and watching a bunch of film. When I hear about Alfred Williams bitching on the radio about the Broncos taking a guy who wasn't in Legwold's top 100, that's a stupid point, because Legwold's top 100 is one of the last places anybody would look for enlightenment. You could hear that much in how John Fox responded to his question about how the Broncos had gone outside what the media thought they'd do.

To your other point, I tended to like Miller as a prospect, but from what I understand, there was a medical concern about a shoulder surgery in January that helped to depress his value. My mock draft wasn't meant to project what would happen, but rather, to think through what should happen. I was pretty clear on that when I wrote it, and it seems to me that I had the Broncos trading out of the first round, and getting Wolfe and a complementary RB with early picks.

Posted by Ted Bartlett on 2012-05-01 15:58:25

FWIW, Miller legitimately "fell"... apparently there were recent injury concerns or something, that the teams knew about and the draftniks didn't. Something like that. This is n-th hand information I'm repeating here.

Posted by tunesmith on 2012-05-01 15:45:38

Ted's article got me to thinking about how so many pundits like to assign a letter grade to each team's draft and how ridiculous that is. They act as if they are a teacher who has all the answers and thus has the evidence to assign such a letter grade. The problem with that is the teacher has a far greater chance of providing that evidence than a draft pundit does.

And while a teacher may look at some things from a subjective standpoint, there is going to be more objective stuff the teacher can easily consider -- whether it's common knowledge, the teacher is an expert in the subject or just happens to have the answer key -- than a draft pundit will have.

Besides, when we have Matt Millen grading drafts on NFL Network, it should really make you wonder if it's a smart practice. After all, Millen's draft record as a team executive wasn't that good. :)

Posted by Bob on 2012-05-01 15:40:43

You are faulting Legwold for not anticipating Wolfe going within the first 3 rounds (not listing him among the top 100 picks) but in your own mock draft you suggested the Broncos use their first pick on Lamar Miller, who wasn’t actually drafted until the 4th round.

Posted by AliciaSS on 2012-05-01 15:39:24

Ted, great stuff. I totally agree and commented as such on an other site (MHR). Only mine was not nearly as well done as yours. Having played the game up the semipro level it nerver ceases to amaze me that many folks seem to dsicount the knowlede the club has regarding the talent on and that of players they plan to add to the team.

Once again thanks; its always nice to read material written by a football mind. You and the others at IAOFM satisfy my need for knowledgable reading.

Posted by Tim on 2012-05-01 15:32:54

Well said, I really appreciate your appreciation of nuance with regards to scheme and players chosen. Thanks for spending the time to write it.

Posted by Van Carter on 2012-05-01 15:29:02

Ted, did you by any chance see this article from CHFF? I'm curious what you think of it.http://www.coldhardfootballfac...They claim that the purpose of the draft is to replace players you have with better players, and they highlight Denver as one of the teams that failed in this regard, but they don't really explain why, except to say that we should have been drafting WRs instead. I'm not sure why everyone is so down on our wideouts. Anyway, regardless of the validity of the test, it seems to me that Denver passed it. Derek Wolfe has the potential to be better than Marcus Thomas, Osweiler has the potential to be better than Hanie or Weber, at a minimum Hillman has the potential to be better than everyone after McGahee, Bolden should be able to be the number three or four corner, Blake has the potential to be better than Walton and/or Beadles, Malik Jackson has the potential to be better than Derrick Harvey. Trevathan might not be better than Woodyard, but with DJ suspended for six games, it's hard to fault them for adding depth at that position. If you look at the players with whom each of our draft picks will either be replacing or battling for positions, it's hard for me to agree with CHFF's analysis.

Posted by AldenBrown on 2012-05-01 15:26:13

For what it's worth, the Broncos claim that they received several calls from teams who told them they would have taken Hillman in the third. This may be after-the-fact spinning, but it's hard to believe that if Denver saw a high third-rounder that not one of the other 31 teams did. I always find it amusing that when people claim that a player "would have been there" later, they're basing that solely on projections and mock drafts that they read, even though the most accurate mock drafts have been proven to be wildly inaccurate.

Posted by AldenBrown on 2012-05-01 15:04:04

AMEN!!!!!!! Thank you for saying so eloquently what I've not been smart enough to articulate effectively. Personal bias in draft critiques drives me absolutely nuts, whether its a talking head, a mock draft enthusiast, or a guy like me who knows little about scheme but wants his team to do well at minimum and maybe even have his team covered positively in the press ... sure, why not? In general, I enjoy the information I glean from all sources -- the camaraderie of the blogs and communities, the sheer quirky nuttiness of columnists, the laser-locked focus of the Type 1s you mentioned -- and I even let myself get carried away often on the enthusiastic or distraught vibe of the day. But we make our own realities, based on how we see the world and how it conforms to our own ideals. Teams aren't perfect: they make mistakes and we have a right to [speak our minds] about them until we're blue in the face. But in most cases they definitely have a better bead on what they are trying to accomplish, and how well they're doing that, than any one of us could hope to have. That goes for Kiper and McShay as well.

Posted by broncosmontana on 2012-05-01 15:02:14

Ted,

Thanks for writing that. I think it was necessary. I've seen a lot of "sky is falling" type posts about our awful draft, and we actually somehow took a step backward after the draft, if you can believe it. We are now worse than the end of last year, already, the week after the draft.

What would be interesting for follow-up would be some information regarding how many players from the draft actually make an "immediate impact" and how long on average that players do need before making this impact. I suspect it isn't their rookie season. :)

On another site I saw criticism of the 13 undrafted free agents and basically "how many of these guys are going to help out?!", as though we should expect an impact from these undrafted players. I got a kick out of the implication that somehow 19 new guys should all be able to fill some role on the team.

One more thing...it would be interesting to see any of the undrafted agents addressed from the standpoint of who you guys think can make the roster.

Posted by Broncosnipe on 2012-05-01 15:00:35

I have a theory about scheme fit. Media types 2-5 base it off of height and weight. For example if a player is 6'3-6'5 around 285-299, he's a 3-4 DE. 300-315 he's a 4-3 DT, 315-330 a 3-4 NT. This is regardless of 1 gap or 2 gap schemes. People assume Dontari Poe is a perfect fit as a 3-4 NT because of his size, But given his measurables and tape I believe he would fit best in a 1 gap 4-3 scheme as much as anything else.

Posted by RockyMtnThunder on 2012-05-01 15:00:20

Groupthink will also be responsible for voting Nickelback into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame

Posted by OutOfYourElement on 2012-05-01 14:44:18

Excellent article.

There should be a mandatory high school course called "Critical Thinking and the Media".

Unfortunately the average American TV watcher/website surfer is an autopilot.

Posted by Super7 on 2012-05-01 14:39:52

Great article that I am sharing with a few of my co-workers (who are Seahawks fans) that I talked with about this very thing yesterday. It is funny because the interest in the draft has created a horrible backlash on decisions made. The dynamic makes everyone think they know more about players and who teams should take after reading a Peter King article which is absolutely absurd. I see this kind of thinking taking place online in comments sections every day and am not sure what is driving it but it is clearly getting worse.

Thank you for the insight and perspective. As always your writings are enjoyed and teach me a little more about football.

Posted by Bronco_JJ on 2012-05-01 14:26:43

Well said and thank you!

I always thought that it was interesting that if you looked at mocks by four guys at ESPN they were very similar when compared to mocks by 4 guys at CBS Sports which were also similar but different from the guys at ESPN and NFL.com. It supports your theory and that there is one guy who somewhat knows what he is talking about and other guys who want to look smart so they take what he says and tweak it a little. Then I get a kick out of Walter's. Its an act of futility to mock a draft but to mock 7 rounds borders on the asinine to insane.

Posted by sleepyteak on 2012-05-01 14:26:22

I enjoyed this very much, Ted. I often fall victim to the value game as the draft is happening, but the reality is that it will be at least three years before we know whether or not this was a good draft. And even then, the only evaluation that matters is what the players the Broncos took are able to do on the field. It's of little importance what happens with the players some of us may have wanted, because we have no idea how they might have performed in Denver's specific schemes. Thanks for the reminder.